Abstract

The gear meshing is very complex process as high non-linearity behaviour is involved during the process. Normally most analysis of gear tooth contact is on the basis of a hypothesis that the contacted gear teeth are cantilever beams to obtain the approximate results quickly. However, many important factors have been ignored in simulating gear tooth contact using cantilever beam hypothesis, those factors include tooth profile variations, gear rotation speed and input torque, coefficient of friction and geometry distortion. Many of non-linear responses such as noise, vibration, abrasion and so on make the actual contact process much more complicated than those in the cantilever beam hypothesis although it is a reliable reference for integrated gear performance investigation.
The main contribution of this thesis is in the investigation of the typical static and dynamic performances of meshing gears by simulating gears rolling-sliding contact processes using non-linear finite element method. A typical spur gear model has been proposed first for performance analysis and the model with integrated parameters could contribute reliable finite element conditions to simulate actual gear meshing. The bending stress and its resultant stress of contacted teeth with static model and dynamic model have been then simulated and the results can be used to provide information on the contacted teeth stresses distribution. The detailed investigation of transmission error in gear meshing has been carried out to understand harmful noise and vibration of gear set and a micro geometry modification of gear tooth profile has been proposed, i.e. tip relief. The gear contact pressure distributions and transmission errors have been then analyzed with micro geometry modification and the analysis is under static and dynamic boundary conditions.
Finally, the most significant contribution of the thesis is the investigation of the frictional effect on dynamic performance, including dynamic stress and transmission errors.